Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding
is as you can probably tell, a snowboarding title (sorry, I had to state the
obvious). There are not all that many snowboarding games out for any of the
major consoles, apart from the obvious very popular SSX + SSX Tricky. So how
does Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding fair now that it concentrates specifically
on tricks and not on racing?

Four international fantasy venues designed
by world-renowned terrain architect Chris Gunnarson are ready for exploration.

Snowboarding media stars.
Players vie for enough global exposure to become one of the world's snowboarding
media superstars

Snowboarders have the chance to perform
insane tricks in front of roaming photographers and camera crews to get their
face on video and magazine covers.

Players also can take on challenges such
as "follow the pro" or jib the snow off trees to gain exposure and unlock
mountains.

More music.
Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding offers ten CDs worth of hot new indie music from
pounding hip-hop to rhythmic reggae.

The game includes over 220 songs from core
indie labels.

Players also can rip their own songs onto
Xbox, make their own playlists and import them into the game.

More in-game choice for maximum replayability.
Players make gameplay choices on the mountain, not in a menu of disconnected
events. Snowboarders start at the top of a peak and decide how to win from there.

There are hundreds of ways down each mountain
packed with rails, kickers and half-pipes. Players take on 125 challenges,
explore hidden areas and locate new spectators for a different ride every
time.

Gamers can design their own multiplayer
sessions and make up the rules of freestyle competition.

Installation,
Settings and Loading Speeds

Installation is yet again just
a simple case of putting the Xbox DVD-Rom into the Xbox DVD drive, the game
loads in just a few seconds and you are basically ready to go straight away
with no fuss at all. If you do feel like fiddling about though, you can change
the controller configuration, soundtracks, vibration modes, and the sound options.

The game begins with a short movie/game
intro which is pretty well put together, and then you get your first look at
the in-game menus. The first thing you need to do is to start a new career,
when you do this you get to enter your name, pick your board and decide how
you want your boarder to dress.

Gameplay & Controls

Review Quotes

"I would
have loved to have been able to go up against a friend in a race, or at
least compete against them at the same time instead of having to play a
turn based system."

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding basically has one
style of gameplay - and that is called Career mode, where you are basically
a nobody, trying to become a somebody in the Snowboarding world. So how do you
become a somebody? Well through performing some great tricks, impressing sponsors
and racking up the points.

The first thing you should know is that Amped:
Freestyle Snowboarding is not the easiest game to get to grips with, some of
the controls are hard, to say the least. Your boarder is controlled with the
left thumbstick, tricks (while in the air) are performed by using the right
thumbstick and (if you want to perform the harder ones) by pressing a combination
of the left and right trigger button along with the right thumbstick again.
There are a lot of different trick types from Tail pokes to Rocket Stalefish
(Don't ask me where they get these names from)

There are a lot of tricks you can perform, but
early on it is best just to start learning the controls, otherwise there is
little chance of you moving up the rankings in the future. You begin the game
at 125th in the world, the more level challenges you complete, the higher up
the rankings board you go, with the main goal of reaching number one being miles
away.

During the game you get the chance to do special
tricks in front of the media, doing this not only gets you more attention, but
it can also lead to you gaining various media rewards for your scrapbook in
the game. To perform in front of a camera man, you first must note where a red
camera appears on the slops, then when close enough to it, you can perform as
good a trick as possible in front of them. Rack up enough points and you will
complete the media challenge.

So as you may have gathered, the main parts early
on are to complete the high score challenges, gain media attention and then
to try to impress the sponsors so you can get hold of new gear to wear and better
boards to ride. When you get the chance to perform in front of a sponsor you
must make sure that you carry out the kind of tricks that the particular sponsor
likes to see, otherwise he/she will mark you down.

Multiplayer Modes

Review Quotes

"There
are 13 different multiplayer contests to take part in, in each of them,
both riders get three turns of 30 seconds each to try and beat their best
efforts."

The worst part of Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding
is sadly the Multiplayer side of the game. I know I have said about how much
more realistic Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is over SSX on the Playstation
and Xbox, but I would have loved to have been able to go up against a friend
in a race, or at least compete against them at the same time instead of having
to play a turn based system. It would have been so much better to be able to
board past a friend and showing them how the game should be played ;o) but sadly
Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding lacks in this department.

There are various different multiplayer games
to play, high score, best trick, media points or king of the hill. But as I
said, all of tem are turn based. Very disappointing.

Graphics & Sound

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding really does show
off some of the excellent graphical abilities of the Xbox, there is bump mapping,
pixel and vertex shaders used along with some wonderful snow textures. One of
the main plus points of Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is the frame rate - it
is a smooth 30 fps without ANY slow down what so ever during any of the levels,
and with the amount of detail being shown during your runs, that is a great
compliment to the developers and the game engine.

There is so much detail in Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding,
it really is great to look at. There are lots of different snow textures, so
depending on where you are boarding the look of the snow is often different,
especially in the areas most boarders don't go - you'll find glistening, crisp
new snow to board on. Then we have the detail shown on most of the snow boarders,
these range from their coats, faces and boots...most of the gear they wear is
also bump-mapped for even more detail.

Sound and music wise it doesn't get much better
than this. Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding contains over 200 indie music tracks,
so even though there are some bad tunes, there are probably around 75% really
good ones. I am an indie music fan, so perhaps I am showing some bias here,
but I think that Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding has the best soundtrack anywhere
right now. On the sound effects side, it isn't bad either, the snow sounds just
like it should do when you are boarding over it, the voices from other boarders
and from the press and sponsors is well put together and doesn't seem to get
annoying. So all in all, a great sonic setup.

So what is missing? Well not a
great deal, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding doesn't try to be SSX, so the concentration
is squarely put on performing tricks, increasing your stats etc so there is
no racing, I personally would have liked to have seen some sort of racing option
added into the game, but not as the main part - that way we have the best of
both worlds. I really do like Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, it is just a shame
that the controls are very hard to get used to.

But in saying that, the game will
last most players a heck of a long time, the graphics are excellent and the
music is easily the best for any sports type game I have played so far on any
console. There is a great deal to like about Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding
- there are some great levels, tricks and the length of the game is good, but
the multiplayer side has let it down a bit. Good, but not great like it should
have been.

Specs & Package

Overall Score

89%

Version Reviewed

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding

Release Date

Out Now

In The Box?

1 Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding DVD
1 Set Of Instructions

The Good Points

Long lasting gameplay
Great graphics
Some fantastic music
Smooth frame rate